Credit Agricole (cycling team)

Crédit Agricole (cycling team)

Crédit Agricole (UCI Team Code:C.A) is a French professional cycling team managed by Roger Legeay and sponsored by the French bank, Crédit Agricole, since 1997. Before 1997 the team was known as GAN. Since 2005, the team is one of the 20 that compete in the UCIProTour. Crédit Agricole have announced that they will cease to sponsor the team after 2008.

History

Crédit Agricole team is the continuation of Roger Legeay's Z-Peugeot and then the GAN team of the late 1980s and early 1990s, in which Greg LeMond won his last Tour de France in 1990. LeMond credited strong team support and tactics for his third victory.

Upon LeMond's departure the Crédit Agricole team acquired the British track rider, Chris Boardman, a time trialist who won the prologues of the 1996 and 1998 Tours de France. The team acquired a young Australia track rider, Stuart O'Grady, in the mid-1990s. He won several Tour stages and nearly took the Green Jersey in the 2000 Tour de France. O'Grady held on to the Yellow Jersey for many days during that same tour. German rider Jens Voigt joined the team until the 2003 season, winning a Tour stage and spending a day in the yellow jersey in 2000.

Team roster

Note: Saul Raisin is registered as a Crédit Agricole rider with the UCI. Raisin has not raced since he crashed and fell into a coma in April 2006. In November 2007, Crédit Agricole doctors declared the risk to his health to be too great to race again.